Panetta Warns Conflict Between Syria and Turkey May Produce Regional War

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta[1] said on Saturday that the conflict on the border between Syria and Turkey may spread to neighboring countries and create a regional war.

Turkish citizens oppose escalation.

Turkey continued shelling[2] of Syrian targets on Sunday in what Al Arabiya describes as immediate retaliation after a mortar round allegedly fired from Syria hit the southeastern Turkish border village of Akcakale where five civilians were killed last week.

Akcakale is a key supply route[3] for the CIA’s Free Syria Army and other so-called rebels.

On Wednesday, the New York Times[4] conceded that “was unknown whether the mortar shells were fired by Syrian government forces or rebels fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish response seemed to assume that the Syrian government was responsible,” despite conclusive evidence.

The United Nations Security Council condemned Syria for the incident and on October 4 Turkey’s parliament voted to violated Syrian national sovereignty and authorize cross-border military operations.

Prior to the alleged mortar incident in Turkey, a Russian diplomat[5] warned that “radical members of the Syrian opposition might deliberately provoke cross-border conflicts for their own benefits.”

According to Bloomberg[6], Syria has agreed to honor a “buffer zone” of ten kilometers on the border, although this was not officially announced by the al-Assad government.

According to Tony Cartalucci[7], the border zone idea is not new. “While the idea of a buffer zone is meant to look like a knee-jerk reaction to a still unjustified exchange of fire on the Turkish-Syrian border, with lingering conflicting reports over who was responsible for initially targeting the Turkish town of Akcacle, in reality this has been planned since at least March of this year” by the Brookings Institution, a think tank funded by the usual corporatist and globalist suspects[8], including the Carnegie Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase, the United Nations and the Gulf emirate of Qatar.